All the Stars Denied

Plot Summary: During the Great Depression, Estrella del Toro and her family are still doing relatively well. However, all is not well around them. The Texas Rangers and the Sherriff are behind other Mexican American families disappearing. The town that Estrella and her family live in, Monteseco, has let its white residents deny business to Mexican American families. After staging a protest and demanding a meeting with the city council, Estrella's family home, Rancho Las Moras, is raided, and the family is split up. Even though they are American citizens, Estrella, her mother, and her little brother are departed to Mexico. They are dropped across the border from El Paso then make their way to Mexico City. After getting jobs and a place to stay in Mexico City, the family works through hardships like poverty and sickness to find Estrella's father and a way to make it back to the United States, the country they were wrongfully ejected from.

Estrella del Toro, the main character is a poet and a writer who wants to live up to the reputation of her grandparents who were revolutionaries. She loves her family, but she doesn't like helping her mother do housework and wishes she could spend her days in a field daydreaming and writing poetry. She has a desire to help others and won't backdown from what she believes in. When she is deported to Mexico with her mother and brother, Estrella uses her determination to help her family reunite.

Author Background: Guadalupe Garcia McCall was born in Piedras Negras, Mexico and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas. An Award-Winning author in different genres and age groups, she can write and speak both English and Spanish. She has been asked to do many roundtable discussions and conferences on Latina women authors. For many years she taught public school in San Antonio. She has also taught at George Fox University in Oregon and Antioch University in California (McCall, 2023).

Critical Evaluation: This has been, by far, the hardest read so far. That's not to say that the writing is difficult to understand. The subject matter is heavy. The breaking up of a family, the attacks and outright racism, the fear and poverty experienced by Estrella, and her mother and brother, it's all heartbreaking. The story is so real. The book doesn't have a fully happy ending, but it is evident that the way it ends was, and still is, true to life for many people. Even if it's hard to admit, you know that deportations and disappearances like those discussed in the book did not end in the late 1930s. The events very well could be modern. As many reviewers pointed out, this should be required reading (Good Reads, n.d.).

Speed-Round Book Talk or Short Book Trailer: Estrella del Toro and her family live a good life on their ranch outside of Monteseco, Texas. When they try and help their less fortunate neighbors they are arrested, separated, and deported to Mexico. Will they find their way to Texas and their families?

Potential Challenge Issues and Defense Preparation: Like in the book, Mexican Americans, and other protected groups, face discrimination. Policies enacted by the United States government that discriminates against Mexicans is supported by many in the white conservative movement (Reyes, 2020). Continuing racism is precisely why this book needs to be on library shelves and why people need to read it.

Reason for Inclusion: I picked it up because I thought it had won the Pura Belpre Award, but it turns out that the author won the award for a different book in 2012. However, the content and importance of the message makes this book essential reading in my opinion. 

Resources

Democracy Now. (2017, February 28). "Decades of betrayal": How the U.S. expelled over a half million U.S. citizens to Mexico in 1930s. [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9V7QDgW9mo. 

Farm Aid. (2014, November 21). Arlo Guthrie- Deportee (live at Farm Aid 2000). [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtigp6DA314. 

Good Reads. (n.d.). All the stars denied. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25768257-all-the-stars-denied.

McCall, G. (2023) Biography. https://ggmccall.com/biography/. 

Reyes, R. (2020, June 22). In DACA ruling, Supreme Court ignores Trump's racial bias. The Hill. https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/503829-in-daca-ruling-supreme-court-ignores-trumps-racial-bias/.

Vlogbrothers (2019, July 30). The Mexican repatriation. [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv2EoJ9RYXs.